"Law licensing authorities provide the only avenue of accountability left for Trump administration lawyers lying to courts, disregarding court orders, or actively plotting coups. Trump will pardon his legal enablers for any crimes involved in, say, packing up innocent people and shipping them to El Salvador. His Federalist Society-approved appellate courts stand by to rob district courts of the inherent authority to police contempt. Trump v. United States may even eliminate whatever liability remains by allowing Trump lawyers to claim their ethical lapses constitute "official acts.""
"All that remains is the individual lawyer's license. It's the privilege to practice, bestowed by jurisdictions with the caveat that lawyers must abide by the ethical rules of the profession. Nothing can make Trump's lawyers respect the law, but the local bar can keep an ethical reprobate from practicing law going forward and continuing to hold themselves out to the public as an ethically compliant counselor. They must be professionally sanctioned, if not disbarred."
"Local authorities have mostly abdicated this responsibility so far, preferring not to get involved. But the mere threat that Trump lawyers may face professional consequences for their actions prompted the Department of Justice to concoct a new rule to strip local bars of their statutory authority to regulate the ethics of government lawyers. Now, the DOJ has brought a lawsuit against the D.C. Bar to intimidate and chill any licensing authority that might consider holding government lawyers to the same standard as the rest of us."
"The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, the D.C. Court of Appeals, and the whole District itself - essentially any entity in the capi"
Licensing authorities provide the main remaining accountability for government lawyers who lie to courts, ignore court orders, or plot coups. The account claims Trump may pardon legal enablers and that appellate courts may limit district courts’ contempt powers. It also suggests potential liability reduction through arguments that ethical lapses are “official acts.” The piece argues that only professional licensing consequences can force compliance, since nothing compels respect for law from the lawyers themselves. It states that local bar authorities have largely avoided enforcement, and that DOJ created a rule to strip local bars of authority to regulate government lawyer ethics. DOJ then sued D.C. disciplinary and appellate entities to deter licensing bodies from holding government lawyers to the same standards as others.
#legal-ethics #lawyer-discipline #department-of-justice #professional-licensing #court-accountability
Read at Above the Law
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]